Article by: Helen Kieber-Suber
Before coming to the University of Delaware, I was super nervous. One of my main stressors was my living situation/dorm life. I knew nothing about the dorms on campus and definitely couldn’t tell the difference between North Campus vs. East Campus. I was stressed about having a roommate after hearing horror stories from older friends. And I was especially anxious about communal bathrooms. I am an only child so the idea of having to share a bathroom with 15 other girls fully freaked me out. To put it gently, I was not looking forward to giving up my own room and a queen-sized bed in place for a twin XL dorm bed.
Then in late July, room assignments came out and I found out I got assigned to Lane Hall. I had no idea what I was in for. Over the next couple of months, I have found cockroaches in my desk drawer, had to lug the laundry down four long flights of stairs, and survived the heat without a fan. On top of that, our room is so small that my roommate and I can hold hands from our separate beds.
Now I feel like saying this makes me seem like I hate living here, but in fact, I actually wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I personally feel like my floor has become so close which is something that many dorms at UD don’t have. We constantly leave our doors open and people are always going in and out of each other’s rooms. We also have the best RAs in my opinion who are always available to help and have continuously requested to be an RA in Lane.
What I’ve learned from living in a dorm is that you have to take the good with the bad because every dorm has its issues and it’s honestly not that bad once you get used to it.